


Crasher

by RobinWritesChirps



Category: The Solve It Squad - Tin Can Brothers
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Post-Canon, Sleepovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-12-17 00:00:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21044951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobinWritesChirps/pseuds/RobinWritesChirps
Summary: A sad little Esther invites herself at Scrags and asks for comfort however she can - with great difficulty and without really asking at all.Just two buds being pals, some fluffy comfort fic :) Scrags and Esther are such a sweet platonic pairing. This is just an excuse for me to ramble on my ideas about their romantic lives.





	Crasher

Esther invited herself at his place all on her own.

Scrags did not remember ever giving her his address, not even so vaguely as mentioning his neighborhood, but he supposed that it didn't take an FBI agent to go snooping one way or another and when he saw her general state, there were more pressing matters than something so trivial as his personal privacy and safety.

"Oh, shit, Esther, you're drenched. Don't just stand there, you'll catch a cold!"

A dripping Esther stared at herself numbly, as though only now noticing the state she was in. She palmed her thin jacket darkened by water.

"Oh." Her eyes fixed on him, yet he felt unseen at the same time. "Right."

She left a wet path across Scrags's small apartment behind him. He slid open his closet to find his smallest possible clothes − the ones he bought as a goal for his future self but did not fit in just yet − but just one glance at her told him she would be floating in them. That could only be better than drowning in her own soaked clothes.

"You'll take a shower," he said. "My bathroom is over there and…"

"I don't need a _shower_," she retorted, suddenly impetuous. That brought him some relief, he supposed. "I need a friend."

Something warm sparked up inside of his chest and he gave her a smile. And a large towel.

"Your _friend_," he said insistently, "is telling you you're gonna get yourself sick if you don't take a warm shower right now. Hush and do it, alright?"

She looked so particularly small and vulnerable, dripping water all over his floorboards, and he would have hugged her if it wasn't specifically for that state of hers. She had more to grump about, he saw, but he held her gaze, stubborn for stubborn, and eventually she shrugged and slammed the bathroom door behind her weakly.

Scrags was not used to company, not anymore. He spent a few minutes mopping up the trail of puddles, satisfied to be hearing the shower stream inside the bathroom. Another moment putting out some snacks he thought Esther might enjoy (her tastes were unpredictable at best, and frankly gross most of the time), drinks (he made some tea but suspected in advance she would be disappointed at the lack of any alcohol inside his home), pulled up Netflix to give her first pick if she so desired. Reluctant as she had been, she spent an almost worrying amount of time inside his bathroom till finally, the water stopped running and he heard rustling through the door.

"Are you okay?" He asked tentatively.

"Jeez, sorry, mom, are you gonna take my allowance to pay the water bill?" Esther replied and he supposed that was as good an answer as he could have expected from her.

Another few minutes and she did come out of the bathroom floating in the t-shirt and sweats he had given her. She was, however, dry and looked comfortable, towel wrapped around her hair. He grinned and Esther, to her credit, gave him a half-hearted smile with a little shrug.

"I hanged my clothes on your… towel thingie… Ugh…"

Without a warning, she crashed onto the couch, landing face first on his lap. Her body was a dead weight pressing into him, unmoving. The towel fell to the ground and Esther's damp hair left darker dots on the fabric of Scrags' pants.

"Erm…"

Esther groaned painfully.

"In case you wanted to know," she said, muffled by the position, "My girlfriend broke up with me."

"Oh."

The elusive girlfriend. Scrags had never learned her name, the details of the situation, what she was like. He supposed he never would, now. Esther was for the most part a tightly closed book. He was content to enjoy the cover and whatever snippet from the inside she let him see. Him more than the rest of the squad, he prided himself in, but definitely the whole book. Perhaps hardly even a full chapter of it.

"Were you… I mean, did you…"

A sigh and Esther turned around, staring up at him with expressionless eyes. She noticed the table he had set up, then − the expected grimace at the cup of tea came − and took a pickle to munch on before speaking again.

"Her boyfriend found out," she said simply.

"He didn't know?! Esther, what the…"

"_If_ you ask me any more questions," she cut him. She leaned over to rummage through her bag on the floor. Showing him a little flask full of large white pills, she shook it in front of his face. "I will shove six of these down your throat, which is the lethal limit for an average adult male."

"Jesus…"

He stretched his arm to pull to him the fleece blanket perched on the other side of the couch and carefully lay it across Esther's sprawled body. She nuzzled into his thigh, nodding approvingly. He asked no more questions.

"Aww," she let out after a long moment of silence he was just about to break by offering her to watch something − no Netflix, then, he supposed. "You have a picture of us on your wall!"

She gestured to the other side of the room with a limp arm motion, too lazy for even finger pointing. Scrags smiled.

"Of course! I'm… I'm proud of the squad."

She huffed in agreement.

"It's really sweet," she said. Her hand caught on his knee, Scrags's on her back, gently rubbing it. "I didn't know people still printed pictures."

"Esther Backpack-Blueglasses not knowing something?" He laughed. "Now that's something you don't see every day."

She pinched his knee for revenge, a particular grip which made him yelp in pain but he could see she was smiling. It didn't last long. Grabbing a handful of chips from the coffee table just at arm's reach, she shoved it down her throat pensively.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Not about… I mean, you know. The break-up thing."

She shook her head.

"I'll find another, I guess. Probably."

A few long seconds dragged on till she cried out, much more vehemently than she had been so far.

"Fuck that guy! Sorry Scrags," she corrected herself at the face he must have showed. "Screw that guy. He just… Ugh, I don't wanna talk about it. I hate him."

He didn't quite know which boundaries could not be overstepped in this discussion so, taking the side of caution, gave her an encouraging nod and said nothing.

"Men are dogs," she sighed. "Wait, no, sorry, not dogs. Men are… pigs? Ugh…"

She turned, facing his stomach and burying a groan in it.

"I kinda hate all men," she said. "You're the only one I don't."

"Oh. Thanks. I think."

"Don't get me wrong," she hurried to clarify, "This is strictly platonic. I'd rather tear out my tongue with dull rusty scissors than ever kiss a man and that includes you."

Scrags frowned, though he couldn't say that her words were any surprise to him. One only had to see the way she treated Keith every time the squad met.

"Noted."

Esther's voice was muffled, her face pressed into his sweater, but she turned to speak with more animation than she had showed so far.

"Like, I've tried it once at a party back when I still left my home and it was disgusting."

He huffed, trying to picture it and not finding it in him.

"Okay..."

'I threw up afterwards, actually... well, during, if we wanna be specific, but I think that might have been the cocktail of drugs I took that day or..."

"Esther, I get it!"

He paused and looked down at her. She had closed her eyes but he knew she was awake as ever. He hesitated, but reached to scratch her hair gently and he could have sworn she almost purred at the touch.

"It's not like I'm interested anyways," he said simply. "You're my _friend_."

"Okay, good," she mumbled and nestled closer, her body curling into a small ball. A heartbroken little kitten. "You were never really girl crazy, were you."

Scrags did not know whether to laugh or sigh, so he did neither. It was only the truth.

"Still am not."

Slowly, she opened an eye and peeked up at him quizzically.

"Are you..."

"Single," he replied. "Just like I've always been."

He reached over to get his now lukewarm cup from the table, took a sip of tea. Esther grabbed it from him curiously to have a taste as well. She grimaced and took another gulp. He supposed that was better than drugs or alcohol. She put it back down carefully and he thought she might now impart him with some classic Esther wisdom, but she only looked at him with ever more curiosity. He breathed in, out.

"I'm bi, if that's what you're wondering. Not that it matters."

She nodded lazily. He let some time pass. Every time he saw her, he realized all the more how much he had missed her all these years. There was no saying how his life would have turned out if they had not drifted apart. He was simply content in the knowledge that their paths had now crossed again for good. There was something that soothed him about Esther, for all complex and deep and unbelievably smart she was. He cleared his throat.

"I'm not... I'm not _not_ interested, like, completely ruling everyone out. Not forever, anyways."

He had never formulated these things to himself, had hardly even thought them even vaguely. When so much of your brain was focused on not dying of fear every day, you didn't get too much time to think about romance. Now in the occasion of allowing himself such thought, he found that he could no more put it into a straightforward narrative than he had before.

"I've just, well, I've done other things. Work. Therapy. Work. The squad now. I haven't..." He sighed, his hand starting to shake, the old tell-tale he had learned to bring under control now, almost all the time. Almost. "I haven't."

Esther's small hand pried his open just enough to slide their palms together.

"Well, one day, we'll get you laid," she said softly, much softer than her crude words warranted. "Do you have Tinder?"

"No."

She huffed. The sadness wasn't gone from her, but it was fading little by little, the core of who she was re-emerging from inside her. He wondered if the sadness wasn't also part of that, an aspect of her as recurring as her horrendous eyesight, relentless sass or mind-blowing intelligence.

"Eh, I'll make you a profile, you'll have a blast."

"Sure."

They said nothing for very long time. Her hand hadn't left his. Squeezing it gently, he noticed how peaceful he felt. That was special for him, who was more used to panic on any given day. Of course, there had been therapy, there had been a severe regimen of working out and working his feelings out, but anxiety was always lurking round the corner despite all that. For the present moment, he was happy to enjoy this reprieve without it, short as it would be.

"Can I stay the night? I'll sleep on your couch."

He smiled down at her.

"You don't even need to ask."

They did end up watching a movie, something obscure he pretended to enjoy for her sake. They talked over it anyways, and long after it was done, each tugging the blanket to their side and teasing each other and pretending to forget all about the big bad gray cloud shrouding their lives whenever they failed to fight it. She was gone when he woke up the next day.

The invitations (whether bestowed by herself or initiated by him) became a very regular occurrence from then on.


End file.
